Graboid
The graboid, also called the dirt dragon, is a fictional invertebrate species that is the primary antagonist of the ''Tremors'' series. The creaure made its debut in the 1990 film Tremors, and reappeared in its sequels Tremors 2: Aftershocks (1996), Tremors 3: Back to Perfection, and Tremors 4: The Legend Begins (2004). It has also appeared in the series' spinoff Tremors: The Series (2003). Life Cycle Graboids' Eggs Unlike any other known animal Garbinods eggs can apparently lie dormant for centuries even becoming fossilized in the process the yolk however will still remain concurrent. For the eggs to awaken an outside heat source or sources need to be present as evidenced in Tremors: 4. It is not understood however how the garboids of the previous films were awakened. It is believed that the eggs survive being eaten by other animals due to the stink that seems to be present in all of the Gradiods life stages; this is supported by the fact that months after the creatures hatch the eggshells have not been disturbed. While it has not been confirmed Garbionoid eggs seem to be laid in clutches of four by a single Ass-Blaster; though considering the view given by the third movie this is hard to be substantiated. Another possibility is that the eggs are laid by ABs who migrate in groups over great distances and communally lay then spreading out the species. Baby Graboid While this is not an official life stage of the Garboids, it is a important category as it shows the creatures development at 1 to 2 months. The BGs appear to be 4.5-foot versions of the adult grabiods. They likely posses thinner skin then the adults or at least a weaker Endoskeleton, as the posses carapace like plates on the top of their body but not the sides this is a key weakness as can be killed with a hand held weapon such as a pickax. It was origenaly thought that they could be picked of by a sharp shooter (Black Hand Kelly later gets killed but appears to start the Gummer family's love of weapons), this theory remains untested however as the BGs continued to grow. Physiology They are like the adults completely subterranean and poses meny of the features that adults do; they completely lack the three tongues of the adults but they make up for it with speed and surprising strength. Hunting and intelligence They are obviously just as smart as the adults and appear to work in packs similar to their later shrieker forms easily able to kill 14 miners in under 10 minutes though as ambush hunters they made good use of their surprise. They can also burrow verticaly in to the ground by vibrating at high speeds even dragging along body’s to feast on later; it is highly likly that adults can not do this due to their bulk. They are able to propel them selves through the air as they shoot from the ground this is made deadlier in tunnels as they can simply turn around and repeat the maneuver. Graboid The standard graboid is the only creature to have appeared in all four entries, and also the 2003 TV series of the same name. They are the first stage of the life cycle of their species, followed by the shrieker and ass-blaster. In Tremors 4: The Legend Begins, which is a prequel taking place in 1889, thus before they got their current name, they are referred to as "dirt dragons". The name "graboid" was invented by shop owner character in the first film, Tremors, Walter Chang (Victor Wong); who was subsequently eaten by one. Promotional material written by the Sci Fi Channel gives them a scientific name: Caederus Americana. As a result of the name of the series, "Tremors", many fans colloquially (and incorrectly) refer to the graboid beasts as "tremors". The result of this was that on-screen in Tremors 3, a tourist erroneously refers to one as a "tremor", only to be corrected by the character "Desert Jack" who replies, "They're called graboids!" Physiology Graboids are depicted as subterranean animals, superficially resembling gigantic worms or Larva, with long, serpentine bodies. When fully grown, a mature graboid will measure up to 30 feet long, and 6 feet across at their widest point, and weigh 10-20 tons, from the infomation gained through the knowedge presented in Tremors 4 it takes them about 3 months to attain this size. Graboids completely lack eyes; they don't need them, due to living underground. Their heads consist of a massive, black, armored beak, which is used to push aside the dirt whilst digging. The beak opens up like a grotesque flower; it consists of a wide upper jaw, a thinner lower jaw, and a pair of hooked mandibles on either side. Whether they possess a skeleton or not is unknown, though a faux scientific document written by the SciFi channel hypotheses they have a semi-rigid internal structure, similar to the internal cuttlebones of certain cephalopods, such as cuttlefish. Graboids have a trio of long, powerful, serpent-like tentacles, which are prehensile and have a reach of at least ten feet. Normally kept retracted in the graboid's throat, these tentacles were initially mistaken for the actual creatures, causing the characters in the first Tremors film to underestimate their underground opponents. The graboid's common name is derived from these prehensile tentacles, which "grab" prey and suck it back down the graboid's hungry gullet. At times, these tentacles appear to have minds of their own, hissing and writhing like snakes. Food is typically swallowed whole, though early in the original Tremors film, they are shown to dismember and decapitate their prey. A graboid's hide is thick and leathery, with a rough, pebbly texture, giving them a reptilian appearance, (though they are not reptiles). This makes them very hard to kill with anything short of saturation bombing or large-bore rounds, usually from guns designed for large animals such as elephants and Buffalo. Graboids possess immense physical strength, able to topple over mobile homes, tow along an object heavy as a pickup truck without slowing down, smash through brick walls and pull an entire station wagon underground. Encircling their bodies are short spikes, which all move in unison to push the graboid through the dirt, similar to the setae on an earthworm. They are able to burrow faster than a human can run; a graboid in Tremors 3: Back to Perfection was able to keep pace with Jack's truck. With armored head and mobile spikes working together in unison, a graboid can "swim" through the loose soil at high speed like a shark in the water, though they are incapable of tunneling through solid rock. Graboids (and their Nymph and imago forms, the shrieker and ass-blaster respectively) have distinctive orange blood. Graboids also have a powerful stench, which is made evident on several occasions throughout the first film. Though underplayed in the 2nd and 3rd films, the graboid's stench becomes a critical plot point in Tremors 4; Juan is able to identify the graboids as being the unseen killers in the silver mines they are at this point called dirtdragons they are small and jump from the ground extremely fast with a hard shell on their back hunting by sound shedding the shell and growing the become graboids later in the film due to them sharing the same vile odoer. The graboids' greatest weakness is that it is unable to tell the terrain of the environment it is in before it's too late, which is demonstrated when Earl and Val trick one into running into a concrete wall, and when Val tricks another into running off of a cliff. Hunting and intelligence Graboids are shown to be ravenous carnivores, always on the hunt for food. Indiscriminate eaters, their diet includes but is not limited to sheep, cattle, horses, donkeys, coyotes, and even humans. They are known to be cannibalistic when the opportunity presents itself; El Blanco consumed an ass-blaster in Tremors 3. Lacking eyes or a nose, they're shown to hunt by sensing seismic vibrations, which are produced by sounds and movements (such as walking). Because they are unable to tell the difference between edible and inedible vibration sources they adopt a policy of "eat first, ask questions later," simply swallowing whatever sets off their vibration sensors and Regurgitate anything that does not taste good. Inedible objects can be spat out with amazing force, being propelled high into the air. Due to the sensitive hearing they use for underground navigation, graboids are so sensitive to sound they must retreat from loud explosions, which cause them great pain due to sensory overload. Graboids are ambush predators, preferring to sneak up on their quarry, though they are shown to chase it down with great determination. They erupt from the ground and use their tentacles to ensnare prey, pulling them into their mouth (sometimes only the tentacles break the surface). The tentacles wrap around the prey, biting into its flesh or hooking the prey with their horn-like spikes. When the prey attempts to flee by climbing (for instance onto the roof of a house or car), graboids will simply dig away the earth under the hiding place, undermining it until it collapses or sinks low enough to allow the graboid to pluck off the hiding prey. When they are unable to break down the prey's hiding spot, the undaunted graboids will continue circling it like sharks until it ceases making vibrations. Usually they wait so long the prey dies of dehydration or starvation, i.e. several days. Graboids are highly intelligent, possessing memory and the ability to learn. For instance, in the first Tremors movie the characters successfully killed a graboid by having it swallow homemade dynamite. The second graboid (nicknamed "Stumpy" by Val) had apparently noticed this trap and simply regurgitated the dynamite. There are plenty of other examples, for instance when the characters escaped on a bulldozer which was too big to be toppled (weighing 30 tons) or undermined (it could drive away before the graboids had a chance to dig away enough of the dirt under it), the creatures simply dug a trap in its path. Shrieker The shrieker (Caederus mexicana) is a fictional species in the Tremors series of films. It appeared in Tremors 2: Aftershocks, Tremors 3 and several episodes of the Tremors TV series. It is the second life cycle stage of the creatures featured in the series; the graboid being the first and the ass-blaster being the next and final. The shrieker can be seen as a kind of nymph. The name "shrieker" was given to the creature by the special effects crew of Tremors 2 and later introduced to the audience in Tremors 3. Physiology Shriekers have one role, make more shriekers, once they eat enough food they reproduce. Unlike their previous incarnations, the huge, subterranean and limbless graboids, shriekers live on the surface. Much smaller than graboids, shriekers are about 5 feet (1,50 m) long and 3 1/2 feet (1,05 m) tall. While graboids are worm-like in shape, shriekers slightly resemble dinosaurs or heavy ground-dwelling birds, having stout, three-toed legs and a compact body. They also have a short, stump-like tail. This tail, as well as some small bulges in the neck, has some orange coloring on it. While its function is unknown it could possible be the early stage of the Assblaster tail and could have the chemicals already present in small quantities. The one thing that shows shriekers are related to graboids is their skull - just like a graboid's, it consists of a powerful, beak-like armored upper jaw and a much narrower lower jaw and the mandibles have sharp hooks and serration’s, ideal to hold prey. Hunting and intelligence Unlike the solitary graboids, shriekers are pack hunters, using their numbers to bring down large prey. In Tremors 2, the Graboids spawned three Shriekers per worm. For some reason this changes in Tremors 3, in which Burt explains that one Graboid can spawn six from itself (the number of Shriekers spawned may be related to the food a Graboid has successfully consumed). They are able to hunt in packs, for a special ability they have. By eating sufficient foods of any kind and getting enough to eat, they have the ability to multiply. The creatures are hermaphrodites, being able to double in number every few minutes. In Tremors 3, the six Shriekers were able to spawn an entire herd of them under 12 hours. Sensing heat, they let out loud screams (earning their name). While the sound is useless (as they are deaf) they produce a lot of heat when screaming, alerting each other to the presence of prey. Another thing unexplained in the films is the shriekers' ability to "see" heat before raising the frill covering their heat sensor; they always seem to know when to raise it. It is explained on the Stampede Entertainment FAQ that they can see some heat through the frills. Raising them merely enables them to make full use of the obviously delicate sensory organ, similar to opening one's eyes widely. In an episode of Tremors the TV Series, Shriekers were being trained by a government agency to use their heat-seeking organs to locate people in disaster areas. However, these test subjects proved to be too much for the government agents and scientist to handle, and eventually went on a rampage. Within hours they multiplied from 3 individual shriekers to 40. While hunting, shriekers show some good feats of insight and cooperation, using each other to form natural ladders to reach prey hiding on high ground such as rooftops. Graboids, hunting by vibrations, often attack inedible objects, and the heat-seeking shriekers are no different. They have been observed attempting to eat warm car engines electronic cables and steamed clothes. Shriekers also feed on cold objects, which they find by dragging their tongue over the ground. They have been observed eating military rations, and could possibly also feed on plants, which would make them omnivores. Assblaster The Assblaster is the third and final morph of the Graboid's life cycle and is considered by some including Burt Gummer to be an even larger threat than Shriekers and Graboids due to their heatseeking abilities and their ability to glide after blasting off. This ability to fly is the result off the assblaster's most unique ability in which the AB works two chemicals into it's tail section. Once these two chemicals mix, they become volatile and react violently when exposed to the air. Physiology The assblaster's appearance is is slightly different from it's previous shrieker form in that the body is longer but more slightly built with fin like wings used for controlled gliding. The skull is far thinner than the last two forms and is a glossy black contrasting with the AB's mostly reddish orange body and tan wings. The assblaster premiered in Tremors 3, resulting from the Shrieker reaching their molting period of 12 hours. They literally do molt out of the skin of the shrieker leaving it and an orangeish liquid material behind. The flame resulting from the AB's take off is exceedingly hot a fact acknowledged creatures when one of them started using it to melt the door of Burt's safe room open. At some unknown point the ABs will lay one or possibly more eggs there by perpetuating the species; this is that with a look at the creatures innards only one egg was at that time visible. It is also unknown if it will then die or lay another egg after a period of time. It is possible given the pack behavior during Tremors 3 that the creatures will communally lay eggs similar to sea turtles. Hunting and intelligence Ass-blasters hunt like birds of prey, scanning the ground for prey while gliding on hot air currents. Their heat sensors are much wider than shriekers', allowing them to view large sections of land at the same time. Judging from shots in Tremors 3 depicting the ass-blasters' point of view the heat they sense is processed into an infrared-camera-like image, just like how shriekers see the world. An ass-blaster's heat vision is much more detailed than a shrieker's, actually being able to distinguish faint evidence of facial expressions. Like the other creatures, ass-blasters are also attracted to inedible heat sources such as fires. For reasons unexplained in the film, unlike their previous form Shriekers, an ass-blaster will slip into a coma after eating, instead of multiplying. Like the other life cycle stages, ass-blasters are intelligent, capable of learning from their mistakes. When several ass-blasters were blown up by being shot with burning spears fired from a makeshift potato gun in Tremors 3, one ass-blaster quickly learned to dodge these projectiles. Lure " Spirit Daemons from dark places, eating the souls of those who live in the light" Tecopa, Tremors 4: The Legend Begins The Graboids seemed to have surfaced enough times in the past thousand years or so for the creation of legends about them soon passing in to the tradition as Tecopa asserts this could possible mean that they avoided the valley that is now perfection. Origins From where or what the graboids originate is intentionally kept very vague; the creators of the film were unconcerned with this detail, offering no explanation as to where the graboids came from in the original film (wanting to avoid the typical clichés of the monster movie genre). The main characters even satirize this convention by attempting to guess where they came from—outer space, nuclear mutations, genetic engineering, and prehistory are all offered up as possible explanations. The answer was revealed in Tremors 2, when a fossil graboid spike was discovered and dated back to the Precambrian - the graboids are apparently from earth, or have at least existed on earth for a very long time. Strangely, no prey large enough for graboids to eat existed on the land at all. A write-up written by the Sci-Fi channel for Tremors: The Series rectified this by saying the fossil was incorrectly dated and actually from the Devonian period, though they don't rule out a possible extraterrestrial origin. Though they resemble worms, in Tremors 3 the United States Department of the Interior calls them "desert reptilians", while an elaborate write-up on the SciFi channel's Tremors: The Series homepage (written in the style of a report by the Department of the Interior) classified them as cephalopods based on their intelligence, beaks and tentacles. SCIFI.COM | Tremors Wong]]); who was subsequently eaten by one. Promotional material written by the Sci Fi Channel gives them a scientific name: Caederus Americana. As a result of the name of the series, "Tremors", many fans colloquially (and incorrectly) refer to the graboid beasts as "tremors". The result of this was that on-screen in Tremors 3, a tourist erroneously refers to one as a "tremor", only to be corrected by the character "Desert Jack" who replies, "They're called graboids!" Category:Tremors Category:Fictional life forms Category:Fictional monsters --FossilLord 00:24, 17 February 2009 (UTC) --FossilLord 00:30, 17 February 2009 (UTC) --FossilLord 00:37, 17 February 2009 (UTC) --FossilLord 00:25, 19 February 2009 (UTC) --FossilLord 00:27, 19 February 2009 (UTC) --FossilLord 00:45, 19 February 2009 (UTC) --FossilLord 02:54, 19 February 2009 (UTC) --FossilLord 02:55, 22 February 2009 (UTC)